My mom was a teacher for almost 30 years. She taught Second Grade at St. George Elementary School. It was a Catholic school where we kids all went. None of us had her for a teacher though because that would have just been weird.
Every year at Christmas we would go down to the Woolworth's and pick out something fabulous for our teacher. I clearly recall there were several consecutive years where my teachers all received a rather large plastic Pink Poodle bottle full of some smelly bubble bath. It was a big bottle for the money so I thought it always looked like I was really giving them something great! I think it cost .99 cents at Woolworth's!
In our family, being the big group that we are, there were and are always a ton of presents for everyone. But no one got more gifts than my mom. She had an additional 28 kids giving her gifts each year. On the last day before Christmas break she would bring bag loads of unopened gifts home and place them under the tree. This was her booty from her students and I, for one, was always envious and a wee bit curious as to what was in there! Somethings were easily discerned. Usually a round tin contained some kind of home made concoction, probably fruitcake or dry Christmas cookies. If we were lucky there would be fudge in there. A cubed shaped box probably contained some kind of ornament for the Christmas tree. We could always tell when she got a lot of coffee mugs and perfume. And there was one unmistakably shaped box that could only come from one place in the world - Fanny Farmer Candy Co.!!
One Christmas, my nephew John asked Santa for a set of Legos. In mid-December, as the gifts started piling up under the tree, our curiosity got the better of us. We saw one package that we were pretty sure was the Lego set. We'd gently kick it, poke at it, flip our finger over a wayward piece of tape...but nothing happened. Then one day we just couldn't take it anymore. We snatched that package and hid under the desk in the other room far away from the rest of the family. We carefully opened the wrapping so we didn't tear it and quietly slipped the Lego set out. We cautiously opened the box and started playing with the Legos. We did this for a while and then just as stealthily put it all away again. The next day we did it again. On the third day, my mom had brought home all of her goodies from school so when we nabbed the Lego set we nabbed the Fanny Farmer Candy box too. Without thinking twice, we carefully, gently and meticulously unwrapped the candy and the Legos. We played for at least an hour and ate every single piece of candy out of that box! We put all the inner paper wraps back in the box and re-wrapped the whole thing and got it back in my mom coffer before anyone could see us!
That Christmas Eve as we opened our gifts, John did his best to look super surprised that he got his Lego set. But no one was more surprised than my mom when she unwrapped the gift from one of her students, saw that it was Fanny Farmer Candy and opened the box to share it with us only to find that there was not one single crumb of chocolate in that box! John and I said nothing. Mum's the word! It wasn't until years later, when we were both adults, that we ever told anyone what we had done. When my mom heard this she laughed and laughed. All those years she thought the little second grader who gave her the candy ate it himself!
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